Do you shave your head to look like a dick?

We had to pull fourty bucks out of our asses for our train tickets to Guelph, and so far, our luck hadn't been great.

We'd only just sat down, but apparently we'd picked the wrong piece of sidewalk to rendezvous at. As soon as we'd sat, we were bombarded by a homebum and his less-homeless looking friend.

He spat bearded complaints about how he'd been using this spot to panhandle for the last 6 years.

That wasn't our problem -  if you've been sitting on the same piece of sidewalk for 6 years, you should probably move somewhere - either a different sidewalk for a change of scenery, or a different walk of life to gain some different hopes.

Regardless, we left so our ears could find some reprieve from his haggard, scratchy excuse of a voice.

By the time we'd crossed the sidewalk, he'd already left. Fuck it. We went back and sat down, on the very same square that he'd just given us a lecture on being useless. This turned out to be the best decision of our day.

Once we returned, we held out our sign which attracted the right kind of people. One of the first donors we met was a young girl, our age, named Sam.

She bounded over to us and struck up a smiley conversation, with some smiley hand movements, before handing us a smiley 20 bucks.

I felt like I'd seen her before.

She kept talking to us and after a while, offered to take us out for lunch. Hungry as we were, we politely declined. Hadn't she already given us 20 bucks? That was more than enough.

She insisted, though, and helped us up from our seats on the concrete and walked us back towards Queen.

This girl was great. She was bubbly, she smiled a lot, and she was very... weird.

Not weird in a bad way, but weird like we were - open-minded and not afraid of the twisted and foul inner-workings of a broken psyche.

She was a computer programmer, so she had a ton of time to spend by herself, contemplating the awkward algorithms of a nerd's mind. Because of this, we had some great (albeit very odd) conversations.

Still, she reminded me of someone.

The four of us strolled down the road, the three boys collectively infatuated with this high-spirited angel. Together, the lot of us strolled down Queen, trying to figure out which restaurant to go to.

We left the choice up to her, since it was her money.

She decided against that - she was feeding us, so we should pick. We unanimously agreed to go to the first bar that we found, which happened to be only a few feet down the road.

In the double-doors we went, looking back at the reflections our filthy faces and our sparkling mentalities. We were turned around soon after, our elation twisted into outrage.

A tall, bald man who could only be described as a fuckface was waiting for us when we stepped inside, his arms crossed and his posture confrontational. He looked us over.

"Nope."

We paused and waited for him to finish. He didn't.

"What?"

"You've got to go." He spoke to us as if we were trying to sell his customers barrels of earthworms and maggots.

"Why?"

He first looked at Scrib. "Well, you need a shower," he said, apparently trying to single Scrib out (like most authority figures seemed to do), "and I can already tell that my customers don't like you."

Doubtful. There were very few people that we can't manage to put a smile on.

"Do you shave your head to look like a dick?" Scrib asked, "because you're doing a pretty good job."

We laughed, left, and spent a good minute emptying the phlegmy contents of our lungs onto the door before we left to find another restaurant.

It was then that I realized why Sam seemed so familiar. She had the exact same smile as my ex-girlfriend.

Weird...

I looked at her with a different eye from then on - not suspicious, though if anything, my gaze probably making it more obvious that I really liked her. Shit.

Infatuation is such a stupid thing... it's one of the only feelings that can make you disregard your plans, your morals, and your life for a few hours or a few days worth of satisfaction.

Infatuation; the Feel that allows you to find perfection in the apple of your eye for the simplest things.

She plays with her necklace the same was as you do? Oh my god, we're meant to be together. She has a tattoo on her arm too? We're soul mates. 

Ridiculous.

Damn. Either way, getting kicked out of the bar by that douchebag had brightened our days. It had given us something to stand up for - it had almost entitled us to a sense of purpose.

Sure, maybe we weren't university grads, but at least we were able to piss off pretentious fucks just by being alive.

Thanks, man!

Addicted already?

The sunlight smacked us all with rays of resolve as we vaulted out of our sleeping bags, baring our half-naked bodies to the glow of the azurean skies. Our gleaming nipples sparkled with determination.

Today, we had a goal.

Today, we were getting our bum cheques, and today, we were getting a shit ton of heroin.

We pummeled all of our shit into our backpacks with herculean might and watched the sidewalk as it sped by beneath us as we trucked towards the main strip.

We walked as fast as we could, but refused to run. Our subconscious was working quickly. If we ran, then we would have to accept that we were already addicted to heroin. If we walked quickly, then we were just making sure that we were punctual for our appointment with the welfare office.

The three of us separated as we entered the welfare office lineup. We met up ten minutes later.

Scrib had a huge grin on his face and a wad of bills in his hands; me and Fernweh wore huge frowns and sported empty pockets and curse words. Our cheques hadn't come in - but we still wanted our drugs.

As we poked and prodded Scrib to front us a couple bags of heroin, we realized that we could no longer pretend that we were free from the grip of heroin.

"C'mon, man. We'll pay you back as soon as our cheques get deposited. The three of us only need 200 bucks. Our cheques will be in soon. They'll be in soon, man! C'mon!"

It didn't take a third person perspective to realize how pathetic we seemed, swarming him like vultures trying to peck the cash from his pocket.

He aptly told us to fuck off and that we'd just continue with our other plans instead. We were planning to head to Snooze's parents' place in Guelph for the week. We could get drugs later.

That was (almost) alright with me and Fern. The allure of Snooze's parent's house sounded great. Since her parents were gone, we were promised three things: unlimited food, unlimited liquor, and unlimited access to small-town teenagers like ourselves that we could get rowdy with.

Whenever you have an opportunity not to smoke heroin, you should probably seize it. 

Negros

Drop-ins were an elementary aspect of Hobo Survival, and the Youth Link center in Toronto had always served me well. Nestled in the depths of a grimy alleyway that sunk between two unkempt sideroads; the door of YouthLink always provided a soothing waft of stale urine and a vulgar, yet intricate display of graffiti.

A little bit grimier than this

Inside, the scene was much more relaxed - usually. This year, it seemed like a crew of black folks had taken the drop-in over. Not that I've anything against black people, but these folk took the stereotypes to the next level. The only audible words that were shared amongst their slurred ebonics were "nigga" and "fuck." They traipsed around the room, pants strewn around their ankles, spitting incomprehensible raps and trying to bump into people and start fights. I felt ashamed to share a bloodline with these ignoramuses.

The three women working behind the counter were as sweet as always, though. Their soothing smiles and gleaming eyes invited you towards excellent conversation and an endless wealth of sympathy and seduction (well, the latter was more of a dream/objective for the kids at the center.)

After we'd eaten our meal (pre-cooked, ready-made egg patties and bagels. Much more appetizing when you slather sriracha sauce all over them) Fernweh decided he wanted to check his Facebook. He patted one of the dudes sitting at the computer on the shoulder and asked him when he'd be finished. The guy kicked his chair back, stood up, and stepped up to Fernweh while his chair slid to a halt behind him.

"Mothafucka, you don't touch me. You don't know a nigga like that. You got a mothafuckin problem?"
"Whoa, buds. I was just asking--"
"No, mothafucka. You get the fuck out of here, man."

Fuck it. The drop-in had been usurped. We had no reason to stay there any longer. We wandered the streets, dejected, broke, bored, and battered. The day passed extremely slowly - we had no energy to squeegee, yet, we had enough energy to stay awake. Eventually, we found ourselves back home at the bridge.

Scrib had the idea of lighting a fire. I voted against the idea, but soon, we were all gathering bits of wood from the bush beside the bridge. Soon, flames had ignited, and soon, the fire department had been summoned. I'd definitely envisioned this the moment the suggestion of fire had been offered, but I was willing to dodge authority for a little while. I just hoped this wouldn't heat out everyone's sleeping spot.

As the trucks began to arrive, glaring red lights illuminated the underside of the bridge; painting a picture of purgatory on the ground and the barriers, We fled towards the bushes and listened to the gruff hollering of firemen as they extinguished the fire. While we were in the bushes, we found an oddity: someone had created a dwelling in a crevasse that separated the bridge from one of it's supports and another thick wall. Candles were lit inside, tapestries were hung on the wall. It seemed that there were a few hobos who truly knew how to live off-the-grid, staying present on-the-grid.

As the firetrucks departed, we realized that today had been lame.

It was time for bed. Scrib and I bestowed upon ourselves the honour of finding ourselves some mattresses, so we hustled to Subway and looted their cardboard dumpsters. We retrieved massive lengths of cardboard that dwarfed us both in size and in width. We hoisted our monolithic mattresses over our shoulders as we marched across the street, obstructing all sorts of traffic and earning many satisfying honks from infuriated drivers.

At last, we arrived home. The final smoking embers of our fire smouldered an puffed grey clouds towards the sky as we set up our beds. Memories of ignorant African-Americans and burly firemen floated in my head as the embers faded into nothingness, and soon, slumber engulfed us.

Weedifested

Toronto was sweet for two reasons:

• The availability of illicit substances

• The availability of free money

Toronto had a welfare program that allowed street kids to apply for a $230 bum cheque. How this could benefit their city, I don't know - most other provinces have a prerequisite which states that you must applying for housing or have an address before you can apply for welfare. These guys are just handing hundreds of dollars out to street kids to perpetuate the drug trade (though maybe that's what they want. Maybe they want us all to overdose.) I'm willing to bet that maybe $10 of the $230 survival cheque is spent on food per person.

Either way, free money's free money. We made it to the Welfare office at 8:15. They had opened at 8. All the application spots had been filled already.

Wow, Toronto was eager to get its money. We sat outside, mumbling about our misery, soothing our wounds from the night prior. Fernweh had opened back up to Scrib, and I had come to realize that Scrib was, in fact, an excellent guy. I'd known that prior, but I'd recently realized that if I couldn't accept him for getting a bit too drunk sometimes, then I was no kind of friend. Everyone gets wasted. Hopefully he'd be able to keep the aggression toned down, though, because Fernweh didn't deserve to get beaten.

Either way, the three of us sat at a table outside some government office and fantasized about how fantastic it would be to have a bit of weed to kick off our hangover. Dissatisfied with the lack of herbs, I picked  up my guitar and, being far too lazy to tune it, strummed a few dissonant chords. As I did so, I heard something rattling around inside. I turned the guitar upside down and awkwardly fished out what turned out to be a bag of weed.

Surprised, I dropped the weed and it fell to the ground. There it sat, begging us to discredit our existence. It was definitely a gram of weed. We jumped off the chairs and out of our melancholy mood, bailing onto the ground where we stood, hailing the bag of weed like a green, hairy idol.  We rolled our herbs up outside the welfare office and puffed ourselves into an excellent mood.

Putting the Pieces Back

The burden of the previous evening was huddled in the back of me and Fernweh's minds as we awoke huddled side-by-side under the bridge. This morning felt strange; this was the first morning we awoke without Scrib and Snooze snuggled up with us.

I would have imagined that any sane person would have left Scrib to fend for himself that night. His incoherent, aggressive babbling wasn't doing anything for anyone; his presence could only ravenously swallow any positive energy that arose. I can't imagine why anyone would want to be around something that can communicate nothing but aggression. That being said, I supposed that Snooze's infatuation with Scrib was still blinding her into a state of irrationality. She'd stayed with him, baring the brunt of his blathering belligerence, if only to give him that very same slack-jawed, wide eyed look of utter awe. C'mon, Snooze. He's not Brad Pitt, and you're not a 14 year old girl being thunderstruck by getting a chance to meet him.

Fern and I dragged our corpselike excuses for bodies towards McDonald's to get ourselves some hydration. Once inside, my phone connected to the wi-fi and began spitting soundwaves at me to inform me that someone, somewhere, needed something from me. I checked my text message inbox and saw a note from Scrib. He'd gotten lost the night prior in a blacked out stupor, and wanted to find us. Fernweh stared over his glass of water at me, and I stared back at him.

Fernweh's eyes hadn't been the same since last night - not because they were injured, (at least, not physically) but because the soul that resided behind them had been crippled. Scrib's ego had dealt a nasty blow to Fernweh's own, and Fern's only response to a blow to his self esteem was to become extremely passively pissed.. Ever since Scrib's first explosion in Regina, the rope that tethered our relationships together had become frayed. I think last night had finally snapped that rope. Fernweh said nothing as he rubbed his bruised face and massaged his boken mindstate.

Me, being stupidly forgiving - to a point that it often becomes a problem for me - told Scrib that we were waiting in McDonald's for him.

He arrived ten minutes later. I was hoping for a conversation that would lean towards alcohol being the culprit for last night's situation, and I was hoping for an apology to Fernweh. We got neither. Instead, he acknowledged the evening with nothing but an avalanche of excuses, essentially blaming Fernweh for provoking the anger that "only comes out when someone's being stupid."

It was at this moment that I lost most of my respect for Scrib. The situation itself hadn't been the worst part. The situation had sucked for everyone. People make mistakes when they were drunk, sure, but I knew there was more to this blackout than mere alcohol. We hadn't even drank that much. Rage can have a Herculean effect on a lot individuals. I've witnessed rage cause blackouts by itself, without so much of a drop of alcohol being consumed. There's nothing scarier than a mindless body being piloted by anger.

That being said, apologies are usually issued after the blackouts occur.

Fernweh wouldn't say a word to Scrib, he could only sit back and observe him with a glare so cold that it made even me uncomfortable. I felt a bit shallow in my loyalty to Fernweh by trying to restore the friendship we'd all had. Despite Scrib's ego forbidding him from stepping back half a foot from his bloated self-sense, despite his inability to apologize for wrecking an evening and a potential friendship, despite my newly found lack of respect towards him, it was hard not to get along with him. He was back to his Scribby self, cracking jokes and telling whacky stories, and I figured jiving with him was far more productive than giving him the cold shoulder. He was here, his presence might as well be enjoyed.

Anyway, now that the crew was (somewhat) reunited, we had to go do what we'd decided to do today: GET OUR BUM CHEQUES!

The Bottle Pops (2)

We found ourselves at the top of a staircase on a mezzanine outside someone's second story apartment building. Surely nobody would be home.

Once Upon a Friendship

Just as we thought that, the door opened and a woman poked her head out.

"What are you doing here?"

We stated the obvious by looking at our bottle of whiskey. "Uhhhmm.. can we drink
here?"

She considered for a moment. "Yeah, sure. If you're quiet."

We weren't. The tables turned quickly. Such began Scrib's second act of severance towards our relationships.

Initially, we were gleeful and excited that this random woman had actually let us drink on her property. Our excitement was evident in our elated conversations, though, the conversations soon came to dwindle.Words were replaced by aggressive stumbles and aimless punches that flew through the air. There was no intention to this aggression - Scrib was simply acting as an icon of his current emotions. Fernweh joined in - he likes to hone his fighting skills - and I sat in the back with Snooze because I was too lazy and drunk to practice.

As Fernweh stepped into the circumference of Scrib's area-of-flail, the scene changed. His words - obnoxious, two dozen decibels too high if only to defile the kindness of the lady who's property we were on (she was surely now too scared to kick us off the property) [run on sentences are cool] - were senseless, violent and cacophonous. Finally, after a dozen minutes of rambling, he resorted into one of the most paleolithic methods of communication: violence.

With a glorious (albeit terrifying) shout, Scrib twisted his face into a contorted, screwed up mask of hatred. His eyes lost any sense of luster as he bellowed, "ALL I FEEL IS ANGER!!!"

He spun with the entirety of his 180 pounds of wait and clocked Fernweh in the face. Fernweh hit the ground and stood back up.

"What the fuck, man?" He stepped back. We'd never seen such mindless fury before; at least, not within one who we held in such high regard. It was scary to see someone you loved treat you with such disrespect.

"YOU ARE AFRAID!!" Scrib stepped forward towards Fernweh, who was leaned up against the fence that separated us from a story-and-a-half-fall. Every follicle that resided on Scrib's flesh flourished with fury as he backhanded Fernweh in the face again. Considering neither Fernweh or I had expected this, we weren't nearly prepared to jump into a state of hatred half as complete as Scrib's. We decided we were just going to leave - there's no point in beating the shit out of your friends. At least we were rational enough to realize that. The liquor was gone, anyways.

Your portfolio presents nothing but provocation.

Your potential's being taken apart, piece by piece;

being picked at by narcissistic fingernails;

a story narrated by pain itself. 

The first part of our walk sucked. Fernweh had been provoked, though at the time, he hadn't want to act on his anger. Now that me and him were alone, I had nothing to listen to but his furious rantings the surreal sound of Scrib's hand as it smashed against Fernweh's face. Fortunately, not far into our journey, we ran into a group of kids smoking a doobie. We struck up a conversation and ended up being passed a few tokes.

This happened no fewer than 5 times on our walk back to the bridge, and by the time we were there, we were so ripped that the night's aggression had diffused itself into a chink-eyed state of relaxation.

We set up our beds and laid down, trying not to let the distant memories penetrate our present mindstates. The night found us quickly.

Squids

It had been over a year since I'd awoken under this bridge. This time, instead of being cuddled up with a fine lass, I found myself cuddled up with my two homies and one of their girlfriend.

This was much more awesome.

We scrubbed the sleep from our eyes and decided it was best to go squeegee. We had been awake for five minutes already and had discovered no effective way to get beer, so we figured we'd hit the street corners and wash some windows.

Toronto's well known for its massively popular and massively efficient streets where gangs of squeegee kids take to the road and clean the fuck out of anyone's car that happens to be driving by.

Fortunately, while packing our bags, we found three beers leftover from the night before. We took them to a corner on Queen and sipped our sunrise beers while we orchestrated the soft slip and slide of our squeegees.

There's a ton of controversy about squeegeeing. Some drivers may consider squeegee kids respectful, in a sense, because they work for their money as opposed to panhandling. Other drivers consider squeegee kids (hereon referred to as squids) rude and invasive. These drivers aren't asking for their windows to be washed. Maybe their window was already clean?

Yeah, my fly's open. I give this many fucks:

We figured people shouldn't get so damn offended.

I understand if you don't want your car touched by a stranger, but I'm not touching your car. My squeegee is. The same damn squeegee that you probably use to wash your own window.

You don't have to be scared, either. Nobody's going to beat your windshield in for not paying us. We're used to not getting paid. If you do have a donation, though, we won't say no.

Everyone's gotta eat. And drink. Drink, mostly.

We washed away for about an hour before the cops rolled up as per usual. A fairly normal conversation ensued.

"Do you know this is illegal?"

"Ye."

"So, you can't do this anymore."

"Of course not."

The cop whipped out his ticket book and asked for my name.

I told him my name was Jamal Kingston and he left me a ticket inscribed with that identity. Sweet! This would make things easier. If you tell a cop that you haven't got any ID, you can use an old ticket instead.

Once you gain a repertoire of squeegeeing tickets, cops won't even question you. Hell, some businesses accept tickets as ID. Thus began my new life as Jamal Kingston.

In a normal situation, with normal cops, the encounter ends here, but as I bent over to pick up my squeegee, a gargantuan uniformed douchebag stomped his oppressive, steel-toed boot down onto my squeegee.

"Where'd you get this, kid?" Supposedly he wasn't an idiot. Supposedly he knew all the squids in Toronto steal their squeegees from the gas station down the road.

"I bought it. I brought it from B.C."

"It's a Mallory." (Mallory's a brand of squeegee.) "I can prove you're lying."

I hesitated, expecting to be ushered down to the gas station in a pair of cuffs.

"Whatever. Keep your squeegee. I know you're just going to steal another one." He left it on the ground, got into his cruiser and left.

Sweet. Now that the four of us were still here, we weren't apprehended, and we had money in our pockets, we decided it was time to go to the liquor store. We were gonna pick up a bottle of whiskey to truly celebrate our arrival in Toronto.

This was a bad idea. It's sad to say that getting ticketed was the happiest moment of our day, but it definitely was. Soon after we'd picked up the bottle, we stepped into some dark times.

Fire in the Hole

We didn't beat the storm.

Sprinting through the torrential downpour, we finally found some shelter.

We dove out from the maelstrom of ice-cold needles and sprawled ourselves onto a concrete slab next to a hotel's entrance way. There was already a wise couple here, apparently as disgruntled by mother nature as we were.

We struck up an awkward conversation for a few moments before we realized how bad we were at pretending to be normal and seceded from the group to find ourselves our own spot to be incoherent and stupid.

The storm cleared out pretty quickly. We'd passed much of the time discussing the possibility of sharing lucid dreams and joining each other in our subconscious minds while we slept. It had been done before - there was no reason we couldn't do it.

The last drops fell from the firmament and we held this thought in our minds as we hoisted our bags on and headed towards the bridge. 

It was only a ten minute walk to the Spadina bridge. This was the bridge of all bridges. Hobo central, Canada. It looked like things had changed a lot since last year though.

Last year, the bridge had been occupied by only the most revered of hobos. There had been six fairly large cubbies situated right underneath the main section of the bridge, elevated between the road itself and the ground by about five feet.

These had essentially been "rented" out to different hobos on a first-come, first-serve basis. It had been truly reasonable - shit never got stolen, people tended to get along, and those who didn't, didn't talk to each other.

I'd stayed in one such cubbie with a friend of mine, P-Dawg Williams. Her concrete cubby had been big enough to fit a single mattress, a couple loads of laundry, three people and enough room to hang her pictures on the wall. Homely.

Despite that, nobody was sleeping in the cubbies anymore. They'd relocated themselves onto a massive stack of pallets on the ground next to the cubbies, that must have been 20 feet by 20 feet across and was standing at least a foot off the ground.

There were a good dozen hobos sitting, lying, standing, drinking and smoking on top of this beastly structure, and they informed us that nobody was sleeping in the cubbies because someone had been going around torching them.

What the fuck? There's a hobo arsonist on the loose?

We didn't want to risk getting torched, and we were way too tired to deal with meeting a handful of hobos at this hour, so we trucked 'er down a bit farther past their camp and found some cardboard. We kicked a bunch of dirty needles out of the way before setting our tarp down and our cardboard on top of it to lay down for the night.

Well, it was nice to be back in Toronto. Now it was time to have some lucid dreams.